


[Fandom stats] Is fanfic getting smuttier over time?

by toastystats (destinationtoast)



Series: Fandom Stats [55]
Category: Fandom - Fandom
Genre: Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Fanwork Research & Reference Guides, Meta, Nonfiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-03
Updated: 2015-05-03
Packaged: 2019-09-12 16:37:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16876383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/destinationtoast/pseuds/toastystats
Summary: I periodically hear some fans complain/rejoice that more fanfic is smutty than it used to be, and others reply that it’s always been this way.   Who's right? (as of 2015)





	[Fandom stats] Is fanfic getting smuttier over time?

**Author's Note:**

> Originally [posted to Tumblr](http://destinationtoast.tumblr.com/post/118079894044/is-fanfic-getting-smuttier-over-time-i).

## Is fanfic getting smuttier over time?

I periodically hear some fans complain that more fanfic is smutty than it used to be, and others reply that it’s always been this way.   As I’ve discussed before [[ **1**](http://destinationtoast.tumblr.com/post/65586599242/popularity-word-count-and-ratings-on-ao3-faq), **[2](http://destinationtoast.tumblr.com/post/114156457594/toastystats-how-do-ratings-compare-on-ao3-vs), [3](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1pgpITGSU0MAdAzmwgBCvm5Q7gKWutsZGCmSg2rEy0eU/edit#slide=id.g300ed4e48dc8f321935)**], the most common ratings fanfic are General Audiences and Teen And Up Audiences on AO3, and  K-T on FFN -- not the smuttier ratings.  But is the proportion changing over time?

**TL;DR: Unclear, but if so, it’s a slight change.**

[[MORE]]

****PART I: AO3** **  


First I looked at how each rating has changed over time (what percent of fanworks get each rating monthly), starting in 2009:

So, generally, it looks like General Audiences is maybe trending downward a bit, and possibly Explicit is trending down a little bit, too, while Not Rated has been growing.  To simplify, I collapsed General and Teen into a Probably Not Smut category, and also group Mature & Explicit together into a Probably Somewhat Smutty category.  I also simplified by bucketing by year.  From this, I got the first graph at the top of this post.  


From this graph, we can see that the Probably Not Smut category is decreasing in size over time.  But the Probably Somewhat Smutty category is not increasing -- it hovers right around 32% ( +/- 2% ).  Instead, the mysterious Not Rated category has been growing.  I don’t know if this category is more likely to be smutty than not -- only 2% of the fics that are tagged Not Rated are also tagged Smut, but there may be plenty of untagged smut. 

 **In the smuttiest possible case,** where all fic that’s Not Rated is smut, then **the percent of AO3 that is smutty has increased ~7% since 2009.**  

 **In the least smutty possible case,** where most fic that is Not Rated is not smut, **the percent of AO3 that is smutty has remained approximately steady since 2009** (within 32% ( +/- 2% )).

**PART II: FFN**

FFN search doesn’t offer as much flexibility as AO3.  So I compared the percent of works that were rated Mature in the past year with earlier years.  And I gathered results only in the following popular fandoms: Harry Potter, Naruto, Supernatural, Sherlock, Sailor Moon, LOTR, and Percy Jackson.  

Within these fandoms, the proportion of Mature fic on FFN is higher this year than previously.  But there’s an alternate explanation:  It’s possible that the Mature category has grown because FFN banned Explicit fic, and some of what used to be posted as Explicit is now being posted as Mature instead.  Meanwhile, older Explicit fic on FFN was deleted.  But we don’t know how much fic has been taken down, nor whether the authors reposted some of those fics as Mature.

Because of this, **we don’t actually know whether the proportion of Probable Smut (M rated) is increasing on FFN over time.  If it is, it’s increased by a max of 6% over FFN’s lifetime.**  


**PART III: WATTPAD**

Wattpad didn’t used to allow NC-17 fic (though some smut definitely snuck in).  Now they’re actively encouraging posting and reading of smut with the launch of their dedicated **[After Dark app](http://www.wattpad.com/afterdark/)** and encouragement to users to post suitable (aka smutty) fic. So I have no numbers, but I assume the percent of smut is going up on that platform.

* * *


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